One of the many damaging salesperson stereotypes is that salespeople are liars and deceitful. They only care about one thing, and that’s making money, therefore they don’t care about the customer or their needs. The truth is, a salesperson who is only focused on their own self gain will never be successful, because a true salesperson is a problem solver. A good problem solver is one that can aid the customer in satisfying their need especially when the client is confused, mistaken, or clueless, and the best way to do this is by understanding the importance of clarity.
Clarity is “the capacity to help others see their situations in fresh and more revealing ways, and to identify the problems they didn’t realize they had.” The best way to reveal the true issue is by asking lots of questions that clarify to both the salesperson and the customer what the true problem is. Additionally, the salesperson needs to be willing to walk away if they cannot truly solve the customer’s issue, because closing the wrong deal is worse than closing no deal at all. The salesperson in a sense needs to be unbiased, which goes against what the standard salespeople stereotype is and what might be intuitive.
The truth is, to be successful today, the salesperson needs to be more “creative, heuristic, and obtain problem-finding skills,” than they used to. To solve the problem well, there must be clarity on the true issue, and honestly between the salesperson and the customer.
BoweryJE22
Libby, I like this post a lot. I agree with you that truth is the key to successes today especially with social media as a negative review can be seen by everyone and anyone in a matter of minutes. Overall, a sales person’s image of trust is more important than any one sale as it will follow you everywhere.